Saturday's NEPL games to go ahead as normal

The NEPL is aware that two other local Leagues are allowing match timings to be changed or to allow matches to played on Sunday, subject to both Clubs and match officials being in agreement.

The League Management Committee has unanimously decided this evening to keep to the scheduled programme and timings of matches on Saturday. There are several reasons for this.

It would be necessary to plan for the worst case scenario of the England v Sweden match lasting 3 hours as did the England v Colombia match last night, meaning that a 3 hour break might be required from 3pm till 6pm. The length of this break disrupting the flow of the game is considered unacceptable.

This season some Saturday League matches have finished after 8pm. So even if we considered it acceptable for NEPL matches to continue till 8.30pm this would mean that NEPL matches would need to start at 10.00am. Such an early start is considered unacceptable.

Whilst the LMC does not denigrate the importance of the England v Sweden match, it gives great weight to the fact that we are a cricket league, indeed the top cricket league in the region, and this is the cricket season, and also that the football match is a quarter-final not the World Cup Final.

I hope that Clubs will recognise that the issue hass been given serious consideration.